People You Meet Online

Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.

Morrie Schwartz (Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom)

I’d like to write about something simple today.

Where do we make friends?

Most of us made our first friends in school or college. We make friends in workplaces. We make friends when we travel. We have movie buddies. We find people with similar interests. We connect with people in similar situations.

And these days, we make friends online too.

For introverts like me, that was the go-to option. What is better than starting a conversation and being friends without seeing face to face?. I still remember Orkut. I made friends from other schools who are of my age group. I still haven’t seen some of them in real; nevertheless, many of them are still my good friends. I had friends from far away too. There was a guy from Tamil Nadu. He was a programmer back then. I remember telling him I would like to be a programmer like him one day.

There are many ways to make friends online; social networks, networking apps, and dating apps!

You also meet people and end up being friends (for good) even when you least expect that to happen.

After the pandemic started, I started playing word games on the phone. The app matches you with random people worldwide and lets you play with them. The game was fun. I made some good friends in the app. One of my reader friends from the app recommended me a book. I finished the book in two days. That is one of my all-time favourite books. I don’t know if I would’ve discovered the book without her recommendation.

The book I am talking about is Tuesdays with Morrie. While chasing after our big dreams, we tend to forget about some simple yet fundamental aspects of our life. This book reminds us to pay attention to people, moments, and emotions in our life. It helps me to navigate through life.

I am currently re-reading the book. I am sure I would come back to this book again.

Reading the book inspired me to write this. I dedicate this post to all my friends I met online on Orkut, Facebook, Goodreads, Reddit, We3, Bumble, and Scrabble Go.

To all those who stick around!